The behavioural treatment of sexual inadequacy: A comparative study

Thirty-six couples complaining of sexual difficulties were treated with one of three methods: (1) systematic desensitisation plus counselling. (2) directed practice—based on that of Masters and Johnson—plus counselling. (3) directed practice with minimal contact. Both members of each couple were seen together, but half in each treatment group were treated by a single therapist and half by a therapist pair. Differences in outcome among the groups were not highly significant, but consistent trends were found which suggested that the combination of directed practice and counselling was associated with most change, particularly when two therapists were involved.     

Processing of repeated letters in search and matching tasks

Several published experiments have used a variant of the matching or “same”-“different” paradigm in which the subject indicates whether or not all of the items in a visual array are the same. Contrary to the results of most paradigms in which subjects process multiple items, reaction time (RT) in this matching task is independent of the number of items in the display (N). One possible explanation of this independence holds that subjects respond to some overall property of the display, such as its general symmetry, and not to the individual items. I tested this hypothesis with a visual search task in which subjects searched a circular display of N=2, 4, or 6 letters for a specified target letter under three stimulus conditions. In the varied condition, the nontarget letters were all different from each other. In the repeated condition, the nontargets were repetitions of the same letter, but a single discrepant letter was always present in the display. The uniform condition also used repeated nontargets, but the negative (target-absent) displays contained N repetitions of a single nontarget item. I found that RT increased at a rate of 27 msec/item for the varied condition, but at only 13 and 8 msec/item in the repeated and uniform conditions, respectively. The slopes in the latter conditions were significantly lower than the slope for the varied condition, and they also differed significantly from each other. Hence, there was some advantage attributable to properties of the overall patterns associated with positive and negative responses, suggesting that at least some responses were based on these properties. There was a much larger advantage, however, attributable to the use of repeated nontargets, regardless of whether the overall patterns differed. This latter observation implies that the flat RT functions observed in matching studies must be interpreted primarily in terms of responses to individual items rather than to the pattern as a whole.     

Adolescents' perceptions of the causes and consequences of success in sex-linked occupations

Junior and senior high school students rated the extent to which occupational success is attributable to internal versus external factors and the extent to which it results in negative versus positive outcomes; 144 seventh through twelfth graders responded to one of six success cues in which either a male or female character was depicted achieving success as a doctor, nurse, or department head. Junior high girls assigned a more positive valence to success than junior high boys (p<.001), with no sex differences among the senior high subjects. Girls of both age groups were more likely to rate success as difficult to achieve (p<.01) and requiring more effort (p<.05), while boys were more likely to indicate that success was a function of luck (p<.01). Socialization influences which may have mediated the age and sex differences are discussed.     

Cognitions related to anxiety: a pilot study of treatment

In general, where anxiety appears to have a specific external focus, such as the situations which are avoided by phobic patients, treatment involving systematic exposure to those situations seems to be effective. This is less appropriate, or even impossible, where anxiety is not dependent on any external circumstance, but is described by the patient as occurring at any time or place, either chronically over long periods, or acutely in the form of ‘panic attacks’. These patients with ‘generalised’ anxiety often describe internal cues for anxiety either in the form of thoughts (e.g. worry over a current problem) or somatic (e.g. chest sensations interpreted as possible heart disease). Beck et al. (1974) has suggested that on interview, all patients diagnosed as suffering from diffuse or generalised anxiety can report specific ideas or other cognitive cues which are associated with anxiety. These usually concern possible traumatic events, such as illness and death, or social rejection. Clearly Beck has in mind the possibility that these cognitions have the effect of inducing anxiety, although even if the validity of the subjective reports were to be accepted, the problem remains of whether the relationship between mood state and cognitions is causal and if so, in which direction it operates. Obviously a causal relationship may also operate in both directions simultaneously, to form a ‘vicious circle’ in which each exacerbates the other. To establish whether there is a sense in which particular cognitions contribute causally to anxious mood, it would be necessary to find a method of manipulating the type or frequency of cognitions thought to be operating in this way.

One obvious possibility is that of ‘thought-stopping’: that is, patients could be taught to identify thoughts which are associated with anxiety and stop them in the usual way (Wolpe, 1973, p. 211) e.g. by' shouting stop, and substituting an alternative thought. The present study was planned as a pilot experiment to determine (i) if appropriate anxiety related cognitions could be elicited from a series of patients with generalised anxiety, (ii) if the reported frequency of such thoughts could be modified by a thought-stopping technique, and (iii) if any changes in thought frequency were associated with improvements in mood.

Clearly there are many ‘non-specific’ features involved in thought-stopping which could also have therapeutic effects on mood. For this reason it was necessary to include an alternative procedure, not directed at reducing thought frequency, but having the same degree of plausibility to patients, and preferably to therapists. The control procedure chosen for this purpose was modelled on desensitisation, in which patients were encouraged to allow the supposedly anxiety-provoking thoughts into their mind and tolerate them, rather than attempt to stop them. In summary, the study employed a relaxation training phase as a base-line, followed by a cross-over design in which the two treatment phases of thought-stopping and ‘cognitive desensitisation’ were given to each patient, in balanced order.     

Lateral masking for letters with unlimited viewing time

Linear arrays of 1, 8, and 9 letters were exposed while S read off the items of the letter sequence while maintaining constant fixation. By this procedure, serial position effects were studied in the absence of requirements for scanning the array quickly, as in a tachistoscopic display, and for remembering a large number of items, as in a delayed whole report. Despite the absence of these requirements, typical serial position curves were generated. Serial position effects were partially ameliorated by the introduction of blank spaces into the array. Performance was influenced both in the immediate vicinity of the blank spacings, as well as extending over a large portion of the array. The data were interpreted in terms of lateral masking effects associated with adjacent elements.     

Contrast reversal or distance paradox in the temperature perception aftereffect?

Data claiming to show a reversal of the classical contrast effect in temperature perception seem instead to bring the temperature aftereffect into the class of aftereffects which show a “distance paradox.” The amount of direct contrast first increases and then decreases as the temperature differential between the adapting and test objects increases. Reversed contrast does not seem to occur. The form of the distance paradox function is like that of the distance paradox function in many other perceptual dimensions and probably demands a similar explanation. The effect of prolonged adaptation, however, is the opposite of the effect found in most figurai aftereffects.     

Rate of forgetting in mild Alzheimer's-type dementia

Patients with mild dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and matched controls were examined for rate of forgetting line drawings of common objects. DAT patients demonstrated rapid forgetting in the first 10 min after learning to criterion. This finding is discussed with respect to memory consolidation and neuropathologic changes in dementia of the Alzheimer's type.